10 responses to “World’s largest private healthcare company HCA plans expansion into NHS”

Brilliant find, Steve. This idea of payment by results is just begging for fraudsters to join in the bean feast.From what I can gather from stuff I’ve found recently one of the key areas Cameron’s asset stripping cronies will be benefiting from this is Public Health. Its disgusting.

PBR is in it’self a conflict of interest. Plus, you cannot have a unit that is serving Shareholders. used as a public service unit. that is a further conflict of interest.This is a whole tin of dangerous worms that has come to light via the CQC of the elderly care homes.PLUS care in the home for mental & elderly patients is a scandal from the MAJOR Gov’t.
What goes on behind closed doors stays their.Elderly deserve better treatment after a lifetime of providing us with wealth.

Hello again just been to STREET DEMOCRACY and followed a couple of links, I came across this thought it might be worth reprinting here not knowing how many may have seen it.
13th March 2013

For Immediate release:
Government signing up to global trade deal that allows NHS sell-off to transnational private companies with no turning back

The National Health Action Party is demanding that the NHS is exempted from a global trade deal which allows transnational corporations to buy into the most lucrative parts of the NHS. The legal framework will mean the NHS will be stuck in a “locked in syndrome” of increasing privatisation, making renationalisation of the NHS impossible.

The US/EU Free Trade Agreement, which David Cameron identified as a priority in his chairing of the G8 this year, was given the go-ahead by US President Obama and EU President Barroso in January. One of the key aims of this Free Trade Agreement is to give international corporations legal rights to access governments’ public services budgets. The NHS is part of UK ‘public procurement’ and is therefore a target of “international investors” and the transnational healthcare industry.

Healthcare has been specifically mentioned as a form of trade to be included in the “harmonising regulation” of the Agreement, which aims to prevent “future trade barriers” in keeping with the demands of transnational corporations. .

The Health and Social Care Act and its secondary legislation were framed to fit with the harmonising process of the the US/EU Free Trade Agreement. This framework means that publicly funded English health services will be obliged to tender out contracts. Large transnational corporations will have a competitive advantage in the bidding process, and be in a position to weather the very low current tariffs until public sector, charity and social enterprise providers without their deep pockets are driven out of business.

The co-leader of the newly-formed National Health Action Party, Clive Peedell, said:

“The NHS is being primed for transnational investors to buy up the most lucrative parts of the healthcare system, under a legal framework which also permits them to sue the UK government in the case of any ‘backsliding’. As more and more private corporations win contracts, the situation will be fixed in an effectively irreversible international trade deal. The NHS will be stuck in a “locked in syndrome” of increasing privatisation, making renationalisation of the NHS impossible.

“This makes Labour’s pledge to repeal the Act (if they are elected in 2015) and defend the NHS from privatisation, a meaningless and hollow one. If the Labour party is serious about being the party of the NHS, it must act now and join the NHA party in calling for the NHS to be exempted from the US/EU Free Trade Agreement.”

Dr Peedell, whose party is planning to field up to 50 candidates at the General Election, went on:

“The Conservative-Lib Dem Coalition had promised the public that there would be “no privatisation of the NHS”, yet unless we claim the public service exemption for the NHS, signing this Free Trade Agreement will require the government to break that promise. If they are to be true to their word, they must also support our call for the English NHS to be exempted from this US/EU Free Trade Agreement.

We call on the supporters and leaders of all other parties to join us in defending this precious public service. There are no excuses. Canada has exempted its health service from trade agreements that its government has signed, and has safeguarded its public health system. We need to do the same.”

The NHA Party is asking concerned citizens to send a prepared letter with a personal covering note to their MPs to insist that the NHS is exempted from the US/EU Free Trade Agreement as a condition of the UK’s agreeing to participate.

The National Health Action Party was founded last year by doctors and healthcare professionals seriously concerned at how the policies of the Coalition Government were bringing about the effective dismantling of the NHS. The Party plans to field up to 50 candidates at the next general election.

The co-leaders are Dr Clive Peedell, a consultant clinical oncologist, and Dr Richard Taylor, retired consultant physician and former MP for Wyre Forest

I’m lucky to be reasonably healthy at the moment but have in the past needed the services of my local hospital an GP and always had top class treatment. In the current climate we can only imagine the stress and fear ordinary folk like us must be feeling, wondering if vital services will be there for them and remain free and of high quality.
What also angers me is the way this has been done by stealth and without the mandate that a truly democratic process demands. The changes that are creeping in , especially the ones mentioned above by aussieeh relating to the US/EU Free Trade Agreement, are so radical that they will alter things fundamentally. The NHS is such a huge issue that such changes merit a referendum. This is at least as important as whether or not we stay in Europe.And the case for a referendum is surely strengthened when you take into account the fact that the government got in power without any mention of this. Given the speed of change I’m convinced the Tories had planned this for years so for them not to have it in their manifesto is downright dishonest. I’m also increasingly coming to the conclusion that the Tories were involving those with vested interests in privatisation in those pre election plans. In other words, at risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, it was a plot. For more evidence of this check out http://wp.me/p3mYc5-5J

Yes. Take the NHS for example. To have a whole, complex new health act ready to table a bill within two months of taking office, there is no doubt whatever that the Tories had it all ready to go before the election – an election during which they were promising ‘no top-down reorganisation’.

This isn’t a recession, it’s a robbery, as the Artist Taxi Driver put it fantastically.